Ruling — Cartographers

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Cartographersbg-263918-en-1e

The game is played over four seasons.[1] Each season is divided into multiple turns, and each turn consists of three phases: the Explore Phase, the Draw Phase, and the Check Phase.[1]

**1. Explore Phase**

* Reveal the top card of the explore deck and place it face up in the center of the play area in a column.[1]

* If the first revealed card is a ruins card, immediately reveal another card from the explore deck and place it on top.[1]

* If the second revealed card is also a ruins card, immediately reveal another card from the explore deck and place it on top of both ruins cards.[1]

**2. Draw Phase**

* Each player independently chooses one terrain type and one available shape from the revealed explore card, then draws it on their map with a pencil.[2]

* The chosen shape cannot overlap filled spaces (such as mountain or wasteland spaces) or the edges of the map, but it may overlap a ruins space.[2]

* The shape can be rotated and/or flipped before being drawn.[2]

* After drawing, the player fills the shape with the chosen terrain type.[2]

* If a player cannot legally draw any available shapes, they must draw a 1x1 square anywhere on their map and fill it with any terrain type except mountains.[2]

* **Special Card Effects:**

* **Rift Lands:** If revealed, each player draws a 1x1 square anywhere on their map and fills it with any terrain type shown on the card.[3]

* **Ruins:** If one or more ruins cards are revealed, players must draw one of the available shapes from the *next* revealed explore card so that it overlaps a ruins space on their map (if possible).[3] If they cannot overlap a ruins space or no unfilled ruins spaces remain, they must draw a 1x1 square anywhere on their map and fill it with any terrain type (excluding mountains).[3]

* **Ambush:** If an ambush card is revealed, players check the direction of the arrow on the card and immediately pass their map sheet to their neighbor in that direction.[3] Each player draws the depicted shape on their neighbor's map and fills it with the monster terrain type.[3] If the shape cannot be legally drawn, they draw a 1x1 square on the neighbor's map and fill it with the monster terrain type.[3] After this, players pass all map sheets back to their owners and discard the ambush card.[3]

**3. Check Phase**

* Check if the end of the season has been reached by adding the time values of all revealed explore cards in the column.[4]

* If the total meets or exceeds the time threshold on the current season card, the season ends.[4]

* If the total is less than the threshold, the season continues and players return to the Explore Phase.[4]

* **End of Season Scoring:**

* Players are evaluated based on the two scoring cards for that season to earn reputation stars.[4]

* Players earn one reputation star for each filled-in coin symbol on their coin track.[4]

* Players lose one reputation star for each empty space adjacent to a monster space on their map.[4]

* **End of Game:**

* If the current season is winter, the game is over.[4]

* The player with the most reputation stars at the end of winter wins.[5] In a tie, the winner is the player who lost the least reputation stars to monster terrain across all four seasons; if still tied, all tied players share the victory.[6]

* **Preparing for the Next Season:**

* Discard the top card of the season stack to reveal the next season.[6]

* Reshuffle the explore deck, including all cards revealed during the current season.[6]

* Take the top card of the ambush deck and shuffle it into the explore deck without revealing it.[6]

[1] RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook · p.5 · How to Play v · 1. EXPLORE PHASE

[2] RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook · p.6 · 2. DRAW PHASE

[3] RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook · p.7 · 2. DRAW PHASE

[4] RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook · p.8 · 3. CHECK PHASE · End of the Season v · SCORING THE QUEEN'S EDICTS

[5] RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook · p.2 · Introduction v · Overview v · Credits v

[6] RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook · p.9 · PREPARING FOR THE NEXT SEASON · End of the Game v · Scoring Cards v

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 104 ms · ask 5651 ms · total 5762 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5762 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 4, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "Give each player a blank map sheet . Players collectively decide whether to use the wilderness side (A) or the wastelands side (B). Give each player a pencil . If playing with more than four players, additional pencils will need to be provided. Have each player write a name for their cartographer at", "headingPath": "Game Setup v", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.048652, "snippet": "The game is played over four seasons . Each season is divided into multiple turns , and each turn has three phases : the Explore Phase, Draw Phase, and Check Phase. At the end of each season, players earn reputation stars. Reveal the top card of the explore deck and place it face up in the center of", "headingPath": "How to Play v · 1. EXPLORE PHASE", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.046176, "snippet": "Set off as a lone cartographer to explore the Kingdom of Nalos. In solo mode, you attempt to earn a prestigious title from Queen Gimnax at the end of your journey! Gameplay has the following changes: Do not write a title on your map sheet. This is where you'll record the title appointed to you by Qu", "headingPath": "Solo Mode v · CHANGES TO SETUP · CHANGES TO AMBUSHES", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Discard the top card of the season stack, returning it to the game box. This will reveal the next season card in the stack. Reshuffle the explore deck, including all explore cards revealed this season. Then take the top card of the ambush deck and shuffle it into the explore deck, without revealing ", "headingPath": "PREPARING FOR THE NEXT SEASON · End of the Game v · Scoring Cards v", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "At the same time, each player independently chooses one of the terrain types and one of the available shapes depicted on the revealed explore card, then draws it on their map with a pencil. The chosen shape cannot overlap filled spaces or the edges of the map. (Mountain spaces and wasteland spaces a", "headingPath": "2. DRAW PHASE", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Check to see if the end of the season has been reached. Examine the current season card to find the time threshold . For example, spring has a time threshold of eight. Add together the time values of all explore cards that are currently revealed in the column. If the total meets or exceeds the time ", "headingPath": "3. CHECK PHASE · End of the Season v · SCORING THE QUEEN'S EDICTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Rift Lands: If the rift lands card is revealed, each player draws a 1x1 square anywhere on their map and fills it with any terrain type shown on the card. All normal rules and restrictions apply. Ruins: If one or more ruins cards are revealed, each player must draw one of the available shapes, depic", "headingPath": "2. DRAW PHASE", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "Queen Gimnax has ordered the reclamation of the northern lands. As a cartographer in her service, you are sent to map this territory, claiming it for the Kingdom of Nalos. Through official edicts, the queen announces which lands she prizes most, and you will increase your reputation by meeting her d", "headingPath": "Introduction v · Overview v · Credits v", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "How to Play v · 1. EXPLORE PHASE", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "2. DRAW PHASE", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "2. DRAW PHASE", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "3. CHECK PHASE · End of the Season v · SCORING THE QUEEN'S EDICTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Introduction v · Overview v · Credits v", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "PREPARING FOR THE NEXT SEASON · End of the Game v · Scoring Cards v", "sharpsignalDocId": 228}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 228 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 228 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.91869 of 2927 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 15, 2026 11:44

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	Game Setup v	p.4	0.048916 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	How to Play v · 1. EXPLORE PHASE	p.5	0.048652 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	Solo Mode v · CHANGES TO SETUP · CHANGES TO AMBUSHES	p.12	0.046176 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	PREPARING FOR THE NEXT SEASON · End of the Game v · Scoring Cards v	p.9	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	2. DRAW PHASE	p.6	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	3. CHECK PHASE · End of the Season v · SCORING THE QUEEN'S EDICTS	p.8	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	2. DRAW PHASE	p.7	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	Introduction v · Overview v · Credits v	p.2	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 11 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	How to Play v · 1. EXPLORE PHASE	p.5	#2	0.048652 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	2. DRAW PHASE	p.6	#5	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	2. DRAW PHASE	p.7	#7	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	3. CHECK PHASE · End of the Season v · SCORING THE QUEEN'S EDICTS	p.8	#6	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	Introduction v · Overview v · Credits v	p.2	#8	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	PREPARING FOR THE NEXT SEASON · End of the Game v · Scoring Cards v	p.9	#4	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	Solo Mode v · CHANGES TO SETUP · CHANGES TO AMBUSHES	p.12	#3	0.046176 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	Game Setup v	p.4	#1	0.048916 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	How to Play v · 1. EXPLORE PHASE	p.5	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	2. DRAW PHASE	p.6	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	2. DRAW PHASE	p.7	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	3. CHECK PHASE · End of the Season v · SCORING THE QUEEN'S EDICTS	p.8	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	Introduction v · Overview v · Credits v	p.2	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Cartographers — Rulebook (corpus doc 228)	PREPARING FOR THE NEXT SEASON · End of the Game v · Scoring Cards v	p.9	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 104 ms · first delta 1500 ms · total 5762 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 104 ms · ask 5651 ms · gateway work 5762 ms · total 5762 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2728
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 867
tok/sec: 205.7 tok/sec — 867 output tokens in 4.214 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 21s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 154), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.